


Valentine's Day

by adamantCompulsions



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Valentine's Day, also just a little near the end, and freakin out about it, but not really, just dave being loved and stuff, minor Rosemary - Freeform, moRE ANGST THAN WAS NECESSARY, panquadrant davekat, sorry about that, sorry bout that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 22:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13668159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamantCompulsions/pseuds/adamantCompulsions
Summary: Valentine's Day through the three years on the meteor.





	Valentine's Day

**Author's Note:**

> for themystichealer (http://themystichealer.tumblr.com/) for the homestuck valentine! i hope you like it friend!!  
> also please ignore the broken timeline, i only realised my mistake long after it was written ;-;

YEAR ONE – 14TH OF FEBRURARY (approximately)

.

 

You don’t know why today, of all days, is the day you decide to leave the safe house of your respiteblock. Probably because you ran out of all that food you started storing after you fucked up relations with every human and/or troll you could possibly have relations with and weren’t too keen on talking to them again for a very long time.

You stand on the transportaliser that’ll take you from your room. You take deep breaths. Your mind involuntarily runs through the possible interactions you could be screwed over with – Vriska (you hated her even before she murdered one of your close friends), Terezi (the messiest break-up you could possibly manage to achieve, even if it wasn’t technically a break-up, seeing as you weren’t exactly together in the first place, according to her), Kanaya or Rose (who are both so enamoured with each other as of the present moment you’d be glad to get a ‘hello, Karkat’ out of either of them [particularly Kanaya]), Dave (does he _have_ to do his best to press all of your buttons at once as soon as he makes eye contact with you?).

And then your thinking time is over, because the transportaliser kicks into action and you’re no longer in the safe house of your respiteblock. As you march to the common room, names swirling menacingly around the gooey mess of your thinkpan, you realise you’d be happier to see Gamzee the murderclown than any of those other assholes who hate you.

You beg help from the horrorterrors (which just shows you how desperate you are) before you enter the common room.

Your help is not granted.

You’re already almost scowling before you can make out the features of the two people at the table – and you’re definitely scowling when you realise who they are.

“Hello, Karkat,” Rose greets, and it turns out you lied earlier, because you’re not glad at all. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

You don’t dignify that nonsensical comment with any kind of reaction whatsoever, nope, definitely not, Dave is just smirking because he’s an insufferable prick and not because you do a double take and show off your confusion like a new coat on your face.

You growl and stomp past them towards the weird human machine that toasts grubloaf as well as their plain, banal not-grubloaf. If you don’t fiddle too much with the cards in your Sylladex, you can get in and out with the least mental carnage possible. 

“Fuck off, you know I don’t know what that is,” you snap over your shoulder at the no-doubt smug faces watching you with their sickly gleeful amusement at your ignorance, and manage to uncaptchalogue a few slices of what is soon to be your breakfast. You’ll come back later when you’re sure everyone’s asleep and sneak out some of the other cards in the drawers that everyone uses as a food preparation block.

“I’d be happy to explain,” says Rose’s voice, and you pull down the button on the human “toaster” with a little more force than necessary.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” comes your clipped reply, and you don’t bother turning around to give it to them. “This may be surprising to you self-absorbed wigglers of a species, but I don’t actually give a shit about your asinine celebrations. Any event that could make a human exclaim in a greeting so teeth-rottingly jovial would be sure to give me diabetes and loose bowels if it were described to me in detail.”

_Pop._ Your grubloaf bounces to the top of the device.

“Dude, chill,” says Dave, and you feel like crushing this metal contraption with your bare hands just at the sound of his voice, “she just said ‘happy valentine’s day’. It’s not like we went around skipping you in circles and decorating the hallways with streamers because of some dumb holiday. There wasn’t anything remotely ‘teeth-rottingly jovial’ about it.”

“Anything resembling ‘happy’ on this eternal hellhole of a road trip through fucking oblivion definitely constitutes as teeth-rottingly jovial,” you respond, quick and venomous. You would rummage around for some of the human butter, which is perfect for grubloaf no matter how much it wounds your pride to eat it, but with both of the humans watching you’d prefer to starve if the alternative was eating any morsel of their cuisine. Instead you settle for the grubsauce on the counter, which obviously hasn’t been used for a couple of weeks.

“Suit yourself,” replies the Seer of Light, a title she doesn’t let you forget seeing as she wears her pompous god tier pyjamas around literally _everywhere._ “I just thought it was a tradition that might interest you, from what I’ve heard about your hobbies from the other trolls.”

You bristle, spinning around to face her. “What the fuck did they tell you about me?”

“Woah, touchy,” Dave says, putting his hands up. You flip him off, regretting turning around with all your being. Now you have to actually see his face.

“Nothing of importance,” Rose replies, still keeping her cool throughout the whole conversation, unlike you. “Just that you had a liking for movies of the romantic comedy genre.”

You search her face for signs of a lie, but she’s just as unreadable as her … something. Her ecto-something. Human relations are fucking weird. You eventually give in and hope she’s not bullshitting you.

“…okay, what does that have to do with Valentine’s Day?”

Dave starts laughing. He burns you up inside. (Platonically! you add to yourself, shuddering at the thought of ever being involved in _any_ quadrant with the asshole.)

“Seriously, man? You’re into trashy chick flicks?”

“I don’t know what the fuck those are but I have a feeling you can probably deduce the answer from the rest of the conversation, like a mature, intelligent person,” you snarl. “Oh, wait, maybe I’m overestimating you. I humbly apologise on behalf of all mature, intelligent people that I’d ever associate you with one of them.”

“Burn,” he deadpans, his smirk now a sneer, and you’re shaking like a bomb about to go off.

“Valentine’s Day,” Rose interrupts, and you both thank her and hate her for it, because this douche needs to learn his fucking lesson, “is an event characterised by the misinformed teenager’s definition of ‘love.’ This leads to a particularly stimulating game of passive aggressive one-upmanship between two romantically inclined parties; one provides the other with gestures of amorous intention that are subsequently returned with even more vigour and ostentatiousness in the eventual goal of getting in the other’s pants, or at least achieving the outcome of a sloppy make-out session.” She smiles. “In many examples of human cinema, this leads to certain shenanigans that could be construed as humorous, or, if you prefer, and I believe you will,” she leans forward like she’s about to spill the secrets of the universe, “comedic.”

Dave laughs. “It’s usually not described so cynically,” he comments, and Rose shrugs.

“That doesn’t mean the cynicalness stops existing,” she replies.

You bite into the grubloaf and walk back towards the transportaliser.

“Aww, dude, where’re you going?” you hear Dave call after you, and your throat rolls like thunder.

“Surprisingly, the words ‘romantic’ and ‘comedy’ don’t lure me in like a flutterbeast to light,” you snap, turning as you set foot on the transportaliser. “I _still_ couldn’t care less about your inane human courting process.”

“Cold, bro,” Dave says, and you hate him for catching you in the one moment where it isn’t possible to pitch the nearest heavy object at his skull. You evaporate from the common room and reappear in another one of the endless, bleak, cold, lonely hallways that seem to make up the floorplan to your fucking life.

Your steps are loud as you seek the safe house of your respiteblock, chewing your grubloaf and with only a few thoughts on your mind.

Thoughts of sharp grins and red glasses and an asinine celebration called Valentine’s Day.

You hate yourself for hoping as you slip back into your recuperacoon, hoping to never wake back up and see those judging, hateful faces again.

 

 

YEAR TWO – 14TH OF FEBRUARY (approximately)

.

 

The first eyesore that magnanimously greets your vision this morning in the common room is the Lalonde-Maryams getting mouthfuls of each other for breakfast.

“Oh, gog, shit,” you say on impulse, hiding your face and therefore your view. “Get a fucking block, you goddamn love-featherbeasts.”

“Oh, Karkat,” Kanaya says, slightly out of breath as she pulls away from her matesprit. “I didn’t hear the transportaliser.”

_“Obviously,_ it’s fucking silent,” you snap. “Ugh. You know what, whatever. Whatever! I just wanted to enjoy some fucking breakfast in the company of whoever might have been dragged in by the meowbeast to this hellhole of a communal area, but like I said, _whatever!_ You two just keep doing whatever you’re doing, and I’ll keep avoiding you, and we can have a mutually beneficial isolation of the lovefest that’s happening here. In a public space. But, what did I say? Whatever! I am on _record_ for not giving an iota of a shit about whatever the fuck is taking place here, so I guess I’ll just go now before I keep rambling like a goddamn Dave Strider clone and make everything even worse.” You step back, and you can barely hear Kanaya protest before you’re no longer in the common room.

You’re pulling out your palmhusk before you even think about it.

 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering  turntechGodhead [TG] 

CG: WE'RE OFFICIALLY QUARANTINING THE COMMON ROOM.   
TG: woah what  
TG: dude i mix in there  
TG: are you saying you want me to move my ill beats to one of the thousands of other empty rooms on the meteor  
TG: no can do my man  
CG: CAN'T YOU GIVE IN TO POPULAR DEMAND AND MOVE YOUR SO-CALLED "ILL BEATS" TO THE INFINITE ABYSS OF THE PASSING COSMOS?   
TG: cmon dude i know you love my beats  
CG: YOU KNOW NO SUCH THING.   
TG: hahaha youre so fucking transparent  
CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU SLANDEROUS OFFAL-BRAINED DOUCHEBAG.   
TG: will do as soon as my brain develops the consistency of offal  
TG: wait is it already the consistency of offal  
TG: ill be honest here dude i know zip all about brains  
CG: WELL IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HAVE A SPECIMIN CLOSE AT HAND THAT COULD HELP YOU WITH THAT, SO I DON'T BLAME YOU.  
TG: oh shit i think i just got roasted  
CG: LIKE A FUCKING OINKBEAST ON A SPIT.  
TG: haha yeah  
TG: anyway what were we talking about   
CG: THE FACT THAT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE WE TO GO NEAR THE COMMON ROOM TODAY.   
TG: oh yeah whats that about  
TG: have us feeble humans finally caught the mad troll disease  
TG: id ask you if youll miss us when were gone but frankly i think youre probably happy about us catching it in the first place  
TG: it means you were right and i was wrong and ill never do anything unhygienic again in the short time i have left on this earth  
TG: oh shit wait a minute  
TG: on this dead space boulder ok totally saved that  
TG: for generations people will be applauding my sweet catch of this freefalling dialogue  
TG: except they wont because this is all purely hypothetical obviously  
TG: you wouldnt actually believe i said the words you were right and i was wrong in a sincere context would you   
TG: oh poor sweet innocent karkat  
CG: OH MY TAINTFONDLING FUCK SHUT UP ALREADY!  
CG: I GET IT, YOU LIKE TO HAVE NONSENSICAL ONE-SIDED CONVERSATIONS WITH YOURSELF ABOUT THINGS NO ONE CARES ABOUT.  
CG: YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUB IT IN MY FACE LIKE THE GODDAMN FOURTH APOCALYPSE DEPENDS ON MY KNOWLEDGE THAT ALL OF YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY ARE WORHTLESS!  
TG: damn son  
TG: this oinkbeast is fucking burning to a crisp with all this damn roasting thats taking place  
TG: but seriously you still havent answered my question  
CG: OKAY FINE, IN THE INTEREST OF PROVIDING MY OCULAR SPHERES WITH A LONG-SOUGHT-AFTER REPRIEVE FROM THE RED STULTILOQUENCE THAT ASSAULTS MY SCREEN EVERY TIME I FUCKING BLINK, I'LL ANSWER YOUR QUESTION.   
CG: LALONDE AND MARYAM HAVE DECIDED TO FOREGO THE PROCESS OF WAITING FOR FUCKING PRIVACY AND PERSONAL SPACE BEFORE THEY COMMENCE THEIR SLOPPY MAKEOUTS.   
CG: THIS IS INFORMATION I HAVE GATHERED LIKE A TRUE WARRIOR, THROUGH FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE.   
CG: A FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE I NEVER WANTED TO RELIVE, BUT HEY, HERE I AM RELIVING IT I GUESS.   
CG: I HOPE YOUR SADISTIC CURIOSITY IS FUCKING SATISFIED, YOU WRETCHED EXPLOITER OF A VETERAN SUCH AS MYSELF'S MENTAL HEALTH.   
TG: ok so what youre saying is rose and kanaya are having good ol sexy times in the common room and if i dont want to be subjected to watching my ectosister bang her girlfriend in plain sight as a valentines day present i should stick to my room or really any of the other thousands of metric metres of space on this meteor   
TG: or something like that   
CG: OKAY   
CG: FIRSTLY   
CG: I'M GOING TO CONJECTURE THAT BANG IN THIS CONTEXT DOES NOT MEAN THE ONOMATOPOEIA OF A BOMB GOING OFF   
CG: AND I'M GOING TO RESPOND ACCORDINGLY, ASSUMING MY CONJECTURE IS CORRECT:   
CG: DON'T BE A DISGUSTING CHUNK OF LECHEROUS GRIME, STRIDER, IT'S MORE THAN UNNECESSARY TO COME UP WITH SUCH HYPERBOLIC AND DISTURBING IMAGERY ABOUT TWO OF OUR CLOSE MUTUAL FRIENDS.   
TG: huh   
TG: i guess im getting predictable   
CG: SECONDLY  
CG: VALENTINE'S DAY PRESENT?   
TG: uh yeah   
TG: cmon dude no way do you not know what valentines day is   
CG: OBVIOUSLY I KNOW WHAT VALENTINE'S DAY IS.   
CG: HOW COULD I CONSUME THOSE FEW RARE GEMS IN THE HUMAN FILM INDUSTRY WITHOUT PICKING UP THAT MEAGRE YET INTEGRAL PIECE OF INFORMATION?   
TG: lol   
TG: you know there are rare gems in the human film industry that arent trashy romcoms right   
CG: THEY'RE NOT TRASHY.   
CG: AND ANYWAY ROSE EXPLAINED IT TO ME LAST YEAR. YOU WERE FUCKING THERE.   
TG: oh really   
TG: sorry dude you know i can be all kindsa forgetful sometimes   
CG: YEAH.   
CG: I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU FUCKING FUNCTION, STRIDER.   
TG: you and me both bro   
TG: anyway   
TG: yeah according to roses weird seer powers and apparently some fucked up calendar she hung up in the common room that sort of vaguely tracks time in a place where time is meaningless   
TG: dont ask me how that works i have no fucking idea man   
TG: its valentines today   
TG: didnt you know   
CG: NO, I DIDN'T FUCKING MEMORISE THE DATE, DAVE.   
TG: seriously   
TG: i thought youd want to celebrate that momentous occasion where humans on tv pretend to fall in love and try to be funny and fail as spectacularly as a cat on youtube trying to jump from a to b   
TG: dont you want to be culturally sensitive karkat   
TG: or at least be a huge fucking nerd for our trashy chick flicks   
CG: SEE, THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.   
CG: WHAT THE FUCK IS A CHICK FLICK?   
CG: I KNOW A CHICK IS A BABY CLUCKBEAST IN YOUR ASININE VERNACULAR.   
CG: ARE YOU SAYING CLUCKBEASTS ON YOUR PLANET DEVELOPED A REFINED TASTE FOR ROMANTICALLY/COMICALLY-INCLINED CINEMA?   
TG: fuck man no   
TG: its just like   
TG: ugh nvm i cant explain it its dumb   
CG: YOU *ARE* PREDICTABLE.   
CG: WHEN YOU SAY SHIT LIKE "IT'S DUMB", THAT JUST MAKES IT OBVIOUS THAT IT'S NOT.   
TG: damn dude fine   
TG: ill tell you in person though   
TG: in troll?   
TG: no wait im still a human over here   
TG: shit this is the kind of thing no one thinks about   
TG: can you still say in person when the person youre referring to is an alien   
CG: ALRIGHT, I'M GOING TO IGNORE THE FACT YOU'RE IMPLYING MY SPECIES DOESN'T COUNT AS A PEOPLE FOR THE PRESENT MOMENT   
CG: AND I'M GOING TO COME OVER AND YOU CAN EXPLAIN THE INFANT CLUCKBEAST BLOCKBUSTER THING TO ME THEN.   
TG: cool   
TG: ill set up one of the infant cluckbeast blockbuster things in preperation   
TG: oh wait a minute i just realised   
TG: youre coming over on valentines day to discuss romance with me   
TG: should i do more pre-karkat arrival   
TG: like spread some fucking rose petals across the bed or some shit   
TG: make myself comfortable   
TG: brush up on my tangoing skills   
TG: dude whats your take on the situation   
TG: bro   
carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased pestering  turntechGodhead [TG] 

 

You only knock once on Dave’s door before you swing it open to find him sitting cross-legged on his human sleeping platform with his human husktop in his lap.

“Hey,” he says, and you return the greeting before sitting heavily down next to him. Not looking up from the screen, he continues talking. “Sorry to disappoint you in the romance department. Turns out it’s practically fucking impossible to alchemise perfume and fur bedsheets.”

“Good,” you respond, even though you don’t know what either of those things are, and his lips twitch momentarily in a smile. Then he places the laptop in front of you, clicks a button, and leans back against the wall behind you both as the movie starts playing.

“So here’s one of the top ten classic human rom-coms,” Dave says, after five seconds of silence that you were about to gladly take as a prognostication of how the rest of the movie would go, “Sorry, I mean baby cluckbird movies or whatever it was you were saying. It has Valentine’s Day in it, I think. I hope. I haven’t actually watched it.”

“It doesn’t,” you reply, vaguely amused by his incompetency.

“Oh,” he says, and it means a lot. Luckily, he doesn’t let it hang in the air. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t realise you’d watched it already.”

“Whatever.” You shrug. “It’s one of the better ones. Anyway, there was shit in it I didn’t get, because your species likes to confuse the fuck out of its superiors who don’t share their inane, esoteric culture.”

“Dude, I don’t know what you’re referring to, but I’m like, ninety-nine percent sure that whatever it is is just basic human shit that anyone with a brain that’s descended from apes would understand,” Dave replies, and you roll your eyes.

“If that’s true, it’s _still_ pretty fucking close-minded.”

“Sure, man, whatever you need to tell yourself.” He’s smirking, and you growl light-heartedly.

“Shut the fuck up, the credits are almost over,” you snarl, and apparently, he takes this as an invitation to do the opposite.

“Oh yeah, I meant to say. What the fuck are these credits?” You lift your arm so it’s being propped up by your elbow and you can lower your head onto your hand, sighing involuntarily. Maybe you _should_ have made him pick a different movie. “I mean, pre-movie credits are pretty fucking dumb in of themselves, but what _is_ this? They could’ve had a montage in the background, hell, they could’ve even started the movie by now. I don’t think I needed this out-of-key piano music in my life, tbh.”

“Did you just say ‘tbh’ aloud?” You move your head to pin him with an incredulous glare.

He shrugs. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Everything, but never mind, it’s starting.”

He snickers and subsequently coughs like he can hide the laughter that way. You roll your eyes. Someone needs to tell him someday that everyone knows he’s a living, sentient being and therefore laughs sometimes. It’s not a federal fucking issue.

You try your best to ignore him as he does _his_ best to mercilessly rip apart one of your favourite human films. It doesn’t go well.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Dave says not five minutes into the movie.

“Shut up,” you tell him.

“No, listen,” he says, because he can’t take a hint even when it’s a clearly worded demand. “He was just being all lovey-dovey idiot a minute ago, and now he’s talking about death and shit? I call bullshit.”

“Shut _up,”_ you insist. “You’re talking over some of the most integral character-building and humorous dialogue in the whole film.”

_“This_ is some of the most humorous?”

“You would agree if you were _actually fucking listening.”_

“See, that’s where I know you’re lying,” he says, smirking. “If it were _truly_ comedic enough to make an impression on me, I’d be able to tell it was some of the most humorous dialogue just by glancing a sceptical eye over it. Like, oh, yeah, this is definitely a funny scene, right here, even though I don’t know what the subject matter is. But they’re just people talking about dumb shit.”

You stutter like a malfunctioning carpenter drone. _“Dumb shit?_ These are introspective topics they’re simply _addressing_ lightly, and – what, is the only type of comedy to you explosions and slapstick?”

“Have you read my webcomic?” he replies, raising an eyebrow.

_“No,”_ you hiss, glad for once that you haven’t reached thelevel of either desperation or friendship that requires you to read the equivalent of a repeated bludgeon to the head in visual form.

“Aww, what? You’re letting me down, man, after all those times I’ve recommended it like a fucking five-star restaurant –”

_“Shut up!_ This is the part of the conversation the whole fucking story hinges on!”

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbles flippantly, “the part where he says women and men can’t be friends because of sex or something.”

That carpenter drone’s messing up again. _“What?_ I thought you said you hadn’t watched it!”

“Dude, I didn’t live under a fucking rock on Earth,” he replies, like that explains anything. “I just arrived on one.”

You sigh roughly, because you can tell you’re not ever going to get a real answer out of him.

For the next hour and a half, Dave continues trying to ruin this experience for you with his stupid quips and comments that make an infuriating amount of sense, and you respond generally with things like ‘Shut up, it’s romantic’ or long rants that _would_ take up half the movie if you didn’t want to miss it. When you do that, he always ends up looking at you as you’re talking, and you have to remind him that he’s meant to be watching the fucking movie, dumbass, not you.

About twenty minutes before the end, you blow up about the same topic that’s been plaguing you since you first watched it.

“I don’t get it,” you begin. Dave looks amused as he shifts his gaze. This time, you don’t point out his change of focus. “Their relationship would _never_ work the way they want it to. Having your human copulation completely changed the nature of it! Now they have a history more indicative of future kismesises – that brief period where there was actual, real hate on Sally’s part but still with undertones of desiring a relationship – except, of course, for Harry’s reluctance to accept that they’d vacillated black – and, by the fucking way, vacillating black from such an explicitly pale relationship is practically impossible.”

“I thought you said vacillating was a healthy and normal perpetuator of a relationship,” Dave replies, and you do a double take for a second, because yeah, you said _exactly_ that. You’re already ranting, though, so you don’t pick him up on it.

“Yeah, but obviously I mean from _flushed,_ not fucking pale! How can flirtatious caliginous banter like they showcased in the beginning eventually result in a fucking feelings jam and shoosh papping session? It’s not just impractical, it’s fucking nonsensical!”

“Well I didn’t get how you could go from hate to love,” Dave comments, “except until you fucking hammered it into my brain. But never mind that, the point is unlikely things can happen.”

You grumble and cross your arms. “Well, I guess there _have_ been good examples in troll literature of a caliginous-pale vacillation… But, fine, even _if_ I’m willing to cast doubt on the complete fucking inanity of _that_ element of the relationship, which I’m still not, by the way, their final arrangement will always have that unrequited pitch element on Sally’s part, and possibly even on Harry’s if he let their separation get to him!”

Harry starts running on screen, matching the urgency with which you’re making your argument.

“But then there will always be that shared messy-exes experience that will lead to a lot of moirallegiance-esque discussions about feelings and emotional breakdowns only a palemate could satisfy. _Maybe_ the added flushed component – which is also utter fuckin bullshit, by the way, humans are so obsessed with that quadrant that it gets in the way of good fucking storytelling – _could_ act as a bridge between the vacillations, but –”

“Wait, wait,” Dave interrupts, and you screw your face up in annoyance, “Vacillations? Who says they’re vacillating?”

You stammer, again. “I, they… of _course_ they’re vacillating, they can’t be in all the fucking quadrants at once, they –”

“Why not?” Dave says, his face infuriatingly blank, like he doesn’t know the meaning of what he’s saying, like he doesn’t get the significance.

“I…” you swallow, thinking. Your gaze darts back to the screen, where Sally’s just decided to leave the party. You give a minuscule shrug. “…because.”

Dave smiles, briefly, before reclaiming that expressionlessness of his features. “A’ight,” is all he responds with, and you bristle.

“It’s just not normal! You can’t have all the quadrants, it doesn’t fucking work like that, you’re either in one or you’re vacillating, you can’t be in three at the same fucking time!”

“Okay,” he says, and you growl.

“You _can’t,”_ you insist. “It doesn’t… it’s not only incompatible with troll attraction, it doesn’t work as a purpose to society, you can’t have a fucking moirail who also aggravates their partner because they’re involved blackways too, it wouldn’t…” you growl. “Anyway, even if that wouldn’t damage the way civilisation fucking functions, it’s not like you could possibly be greedy enough to want emotional support and both flushed and caliginous compensation,” you explain, realising that you’ve been leaning forward ever-so-slightly since the start of this argument. It means you’ve got a front-row view as Dave just nods. Simple but obvious.

“Cool,” he says, and you resist the urge to whine in frustration as he does so. It’s not like he’s fighting you on it. So why are you so riled up about it?

You stay like that for a couple of moments, as the people in the movie count down to New Year’s Day.

You growl and do what you always do in emotionally charged situations.

Resort to unprecedented displays of anger.

“Why are you still staring at me, fuckface?” you snap, baring your teeth like you think it’ll make you look threatening. “Watch the fucking movie.”

“What? I wasn’t staring,” Dave denies, shallow as a fucking grub’s swimming pool, and turns back to his computer. “I’m watching.” You huff and sit back against the wall in turn.

You forget it pretty quickly as the movie continues, and Dave makes another stupid comment about the ending, and you laugh even though you don’t want to. He asks if you want to watch another one, and you do, so he puts on his next pick (you’ve seen this one too, but you assure him it doesn’t matter). You keep watching what Dave considers the human romantic comedy classics for the rest of the day, and when you leave, you only have a few thoughts on your mind.

Thoughts of rare grins and black glasses and an asinine celebration called Valentine’s Day.

God, you’re hopeless.

 

YEAR 3 – 14TH OF FEBRUARY (approximately)

.

 

You groan and roll over in your empty recuperacoon. You haven’t slept in this thing in ages; normally you fall asleep unceremoniously on the couch – which would usually be a significant blow to your dignity, but when compared to this thing, it’s a small price to pay – or in Dave’s human recuperation platform, but for some reason he insisted you sleep here for once last night. You didn’t realise how uncomfortable a recuperacoon could be when it isn’t filled to the brim with slime.

You reach over the edge of it to check for messages on your palmhusk, but instead of your trusty handheld computing device to greet your searching fingers, there’s a folded piece of what feels like cardboard. You screw your face up in confusion and grab a hold of the thing on your nightstand, pulling it down with you so you can see it. You blink the sleep from your eyes.

In almost unintelligible cursive, floral patterning cushioning the words like an oppressive ocean of dyslexia-unfriendly reading inhibitors, you barely parse the words:

_“Happy Valentine’s Day.”_

You blink again and open the card. Inside are a couple more printed words you couldn’t be bothered expending effort to try and comprehend and a personalised message beneath them. It’s a messily-drawn heart, in red pen.

You blink a third time. Your eyes widen.

Oh, shit.

 

***

 

You slam your hands on the table in the common room. _“Lalonde.”_

She waits a few moments before carefully folding the corner of the page she’s reading and closing the book with a prolonged delicacy. She places it on the bench in front of you, taking her sweet, inferior time. She smiles, honeysuckle, poison.

“Yes?” she replies, and you growl at her familiarly supercilious tone.

“It’s Valentine’s Day.” She doesn’t change her expression.

“Excellent observation,” she responds. You roll your eyes but relax your tensed muscles a bit.

“What are you doing for Kanaya?” you ask, your intentions hopefully subtle enough that she leaves you alone. You resist the urge to self-destruct out of shame and boiling rage as she raises a calculated eyebrow.

“Before I answer, I feel obligated to inform you that my relationship with Kanaya is very different from your relationship with Dave.”

You flush bright red. _“What?”_

“Different steps should be taken by you than I – not only because your state of affairs is quite disparate to mine, but because this is your first Valentine’s Day as a true couple.”

“I am _not –”_

“However, if you would please drop the veil of secrecy and denial for a moment, I will be happy to assist in your next course of action.”

She smiles, honeysuckle, poison.

You glare.

And deflate, half sliding, half falling into the chair closest to you. “Fine,” you groan, attempting to bury your face in the wood beneath your splayed arms. “Tell me how to fucking woo Dave Strider.”

You can hear the honeysuckle smile in her voice. “Gladly,” she replies, poison. You can’t help but taste the cold disappointment of regret as she talks you through it like you’re a wiggler and produces a small flower-scented sheet of paper which she proceeds to write on while she speaks and eventually hands to you with her meticulously dictated instructions calligraphed in pompous lavender. You skim over it, because you honestly weren’t listening to a word she was saying; it’s divided into steps, with Dave’s actions marked by an asterisk. It reads:

_Good morning Valentine’s Day card* = box of chocolates = heartfelt show of gratitude = invitation to ‘hang out’, with varying levels of flirtatious depending on the first party’s personal preference (high levels of flirtation advised) = acceptance of the invitation and preparation of private quarters (this is where the ‘hanging out’ will take place)* = the participation in an activity of shared decision = sloppy makeouts (mutual)_

You resist the urge to groan aloud and manage to grumble a ‘thanks’ before attempting to retrieve breakfast from the food preparation block portion of the common room.

“Oh, yes,” Rose says as you find yourself confronted by the inability to do so, “I forgot to mention; the kitchen is officially off-limits until Kanaya has been served bed in breakfast. She won the game of romance last year, and it won’t be happening again.”

“This better not be part of _my_ future,” you mutter, your eyes wide and hopeless as you survey the towering, multi-functional preparations for what appears to be several different _courses,_ a far cry from a simple bed in breakfast.

 

***

 

Everybody out of the goddamn way. You’ve got a room full of Strider, a box full of chocolates, and a head full of the barely-restrained will to bolt into the endless abyss of paradox space instead of facing the problem at hand.

‘Restrained’being the key word here.

Okay, deep breaths in.

You lift an arm.

You curl your hand into a fist.

You knock.

Deep breaths out.

You tap your foot as you wait for him to answer, your thoughts racing at a million miles per hour. You start to think shit like _What if he’s not even in at the moment?_ which starts a whole forest of other thoughts you don’t want to be thinking, like _Wow, I’m a presumptuous piece of shit, aren’t I?_ and _What if he’s regretting giving it to me?_ and _What if he’s got a plan himself and you’re wrecking it?_ and _What if it’s not meant to be a big deal?_ and _Am I making it a big deal?_

You start to reverse through your memory, scouring through each and every of Lalonde’s words, wondering _Do I stay here and wait? Do I drop the chocolates and run? Well, okay, not run, that would be fucking dumb –_

You hear something clatter inside and a quiet ‘fuck’ that still carries through the door. Your heart starts racing as fast as your thoughts. You think your internal organs might be developing whiplash.

_Did she say I could go? It doesn’t seem right that I should be here when he opens the door. That would put the ‘hanging out’ plan into total chaos. And what about sophisticated flirtation? This isn’t sophisticated, this is what a gauche fucking wiggler would do – oh, gog. That’s the secret, isn’t it? I’m a gauche fucking wiggler and this is how to get justifiably rejected because he doesn’t deserve some fuckbrained loser like me – oh, shit._

The door’s opening.

Everything in your head comes to a screeching halt.

Dave leans against the doorframe, faux-casual.

“Hey,” he says.

“Here.” You shove the chocolates in his face.

He blinks, carefully places the ‘vaguely amused’ mask over his face, and takes the box. He jerks his head towards the inside of his room and walks towards his bed in a clear invitation for you to follow. You do.

You stand with your arms crossed and your claws scratching idly at your sweater sleeves, shifting on your feet like you still want to run. Part of you does. The other part is desperately over-attentive towards every single movement of Dave’s muscles as he carefully starts opening the box, not wrapped because you know you wouldn’t be able to make that work if your life depended on it.

He doesn’t open it fully. He lets it hang in his hands, casting a shadow on the contents inside, just staring.

And staring.

And staring.

And _staring._

“Well?” you say after a while, slightly pissed, and slightly worried. He’s never stayed this quiet in the entire time you’ve known him.

You notice his muscles twitching slightly as Strider.exe reboots, and then he _finally_ responds in some way. “You –” It’s quiet, his voice coming way too close to breaking for his liking (alarm bells start ringing in your head). He licks his lips and tries again, “You put a lot of effort into this?”

You nod. “They were fucking impossible to alchemise.” You’re mumbling, because it’s not like you’re looking for sympathy or anything. _He_ fucking asked. “I had to enlist the help of fucking Terezi. That went about as well as you could expect. Not to mention the fucking shapes.”

He’s quiet, still just staring, still not moving. Pursing his lips. Using them. “And you did this… for, um…”

“Valentine’s Day,” you finish hesitantly, shrugging like that will obfuscate the sickening sincerity you’re admitting to feeling when you made these. “For you. Because of the card. I’ll be honest, I had some qualms about Rose’s stupid fucking list she made me, but she said this was the appropriate human response to a Valentine’s card, so I guess I just went with it, and, um, I… yeah, I made them for you. Whatever.” You shrug pointedly, looking away and scratching at the floor with your sneaker. When you look back at him, he still hasn’t moved even slightly.

“Um…” you shift your feet as though trying to find the perfect way to stand on this perfectly flat, perfectly levelled floor. “I, uh… know they’re not very good, but should I just keep standing here or do you want me to go…?” You swallow the lump in your throat and continue before he can possibly answer, while simultaneously blaming him for not answering and stopping you, “I mean, if you need some time alone to fucking desecrate your room with the linings of your stomach out of sheer second-hand embarrassment and disgust and you don’t want me to be caught in the crossfire, I can totally fucking oblige, I –”

“No,” he interrupts. “No, I mean – stay.” He raises a hand like he’s going to run it through his hair, an action you know well enough to recognise, but instead it reaches up under his shades. “Fucking hell,” he mutters, and your pale instincts go mental, because you’ve heard that tone in his voice before. You’ve seen that _movement_ before.

You’re sitting in front of him before you can register the fact you’ve moved, the chocolates pushed to the side, unimportant. “Dave, holy shit,” you’re saying, your hands cupping his face, and he actually laughs a little bit.

“Dude, calm down,” he says, his voice strained like glass in the opera. “It’s just dusty.”

“It’s never dusty when someone says it’s dusty. Anyway, when it _is,_ you sneeze, and it’s adorable, you don’t fucking cry,” you snap, still papping him with one of your hands. He’s complaining, but he’s not moving away, and that means he needs it.

“Dude, I’m fine,” he tries to say, but it comes out as more of a whimper. You pull him into you, his head resting in the crook of your neck, and you shoosh him, which gets him laughing again. Maybe you’re making too big a deal out of this, but better safe than sorry, right? He lets you keep him there like that in silence for a while, as you rock him slightly back and forth and try to shoosh his tears away, as you emulate his breathing, a habit you picked up to help yourself when you’re in need of helping; _breathe in until it doesn’t shudder, hold until your heart stops beating, breathe out until it’s steady._ Then he starts mumbling into your sweater. “I’m not adorable.” His voice is thick and soggy. “I’m hot shit.”

“Hot shit that sneezes like a motherfucking meowbeast,” you reply, and he does that airy breath of a laugh again. He sniffles, and it’s even more adorable than his sneeze, even if it has fairly worse connotations. “Hot shit that’s fucking sobbing into my lap right now.”

“I’m not in your lap, man,” he protests, digging his nose further into your shoulder. You deign to wash your sweater afterwards, because you’re always here for Dave, and you support him, but does he seriously have to get all your clothes disgusting whenever he gets weepy? “And I’m not fucking sobbing. I told you. It’s the dust.”

You roll your eyes, stroking up and down his back reassuringly. His god tier pyjamas are still somewhat big on him, but at least they fit slightly better since you started enforcing his regular eating habits. “Strider, I think we’re long past the point of pretending it’s the dust.”

He sighs heavily into you. “Fine. I might be crying a bit. But I’m not bawling into your fucking shoulder like some hysterical dame.”

“I believe that’s what your dead human culture might call debatable,” you mutter, and he laughs and shakes his head against your collarbone.

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, fuck you too,” you reply fondly, and he laughs again, louder. He snuffles and sighs and rests his whole weight against your supporting body for another five or so minutes, which isn’t too bad because even though he’s been eating properly for the last few months (due to no small influence from you), he’s still a gangly, lanky twig and he weighs practically nothing.

Eventually he takes in an especially big breath, lifting himself from your shoulder. You watch him patiently, search for the striking red pupils behind the shades, find them easily from this distance and smile to them. They smile back.

“Okay,” he says, his eyelids fluttering half-closed as he looks down. “As much fun as this was, I’d prefer we hide the ‘Dave Strider has an emotional breakdown because he was presented with rock-hard evidence that someone actually gives a shit about him’ chapter of our lives in the recesses of our memory, thanks.”

“I’m afraid there are several chapters with that title,” you respond automatically, and he grins and laughs through his teeth and shakes his head as if to clear it of the blush now following the trails of freckles on his face. You love when he does that.

“Shut up,” he tells you, so you do. He stares at you a little longer. You don’t think he knows you can see him doing so – he loves to stare at you, but he thinks as long as he’s got his shields, his armour, you won’t notice. Unfortunately for him, you love to notice.

You reach out to curl your hand lightly around his jaw again, and he instantly softens, as per usual. You smile warmly at him and lean up to kiss him gently on the forehead, because you know he sometimes gets bad about the weird human homosexual thing when you kiss him on the lips, and pull away smiling even warmer than before. He’s smiling too (finally).

He glances very not-subtly below your eye level, glances back up again with clear indecision, repeats, and again, until he leans in, flinches back, tries again. He pecks you on the lips as quick as possible and pulls away with skin as red as his text.

“Do you want to watch a movie or some shit,” he mumbles, battling with the smile on his face. You hope he loses.

“Sure,” you reply, and he wriggles his way around to grab his human computing device from the nightstand. He scoots backwards while he does so, so that when he turns again his back is against the headstand of his bed (it’s a fucking eyesore, and you don’t know how his retinas can stand it even while planted firmly beneath the solid curtains of his eyelids). Luckily, he obviously wants you to copy, so you shift over next to him and put the back of your head against the ocular abomination, where it will remain, for now, invisible to your sensitive gander bulbs. You watch as he clicks through weird folder after weird folder, until he reaches one he’s never allowed you to view the name of before. It reads “karkat movies.” Your cheeks may be warmer than they were previously, after that, but really, who can say?

He double clicks on one of the files and a familiarly terrible credits scene begins.

“Oh my fuck,” you mutter, and he snorts.

“Oh your good fuck or oh your bad fuck?” he inquires, and you roll your eyes.

“Good, obviously,” and you’re smiling to drive the point home, even if you think this is a pyrrhic way of doing so, “This is so… _romantic_. It’s so _unlike_ you.”

“Oh, come on. I can be romantic.”

“Dave, your idea of an adequate Valentine’s Day card is an illegible, flowery scribble and a heart.”

A pause.

“…so, what’s your point?”

You laugh (an ugly, snorting, wild oinkbeast-esque disaster of a thing, but no matter how much you hate it, he always manages to drag it out of you) and lightly shove his side, but he comes right back to you, like one of the balls in a dysfunctional Troll Newton’s Cradle. You let out a small huff as his body collides with yours, because even though he’s a skinny piece of shit, he can be a forceful skinny piece of shit when he wants to be.

“So… you liked the chocolates?” you ask nervously as the first pair of elderly flushed lovers describes their long-lasting human marriage to the audience.

“Of _course_ I liked them, dude,” he replies immediately, and heat rises to your face again.

“Okay,” you mutter, and as the movie _actually_ starts (you’ll give it to him, it’s a bit slow to begin with) his weight disappears from your side. You don’t have much time to miss it, though, before it’s back, and Dave is holding the box from earlier.

“You’re not going to cry when you open it again, are you?” you ask, irritation in your voice by default because you didn’t have time to filter it out, but he knows it’s sincere enough.

“I like to think I’m a little stronger than that,” he replies, flicking open the lid of the box.

“Maybe you used to be,” you mutter, knowing he never would’ve been so open about crying when he was younger. He would’ve hidden everything, from his eyes to his voice to his feelings in general. You’re glad he’s changed.

Watching the movie quickly takes a backseat to watching him pass his fingers lightly over the confectionary. They’re in record shapes, quadrant symbols, cans with messily written labels on the front – they’re all shit, but he seems so enamoured by them it’s like this is his first time seeing chocolate.

“Is that a crow?” he asks, his finger on the edge of one of the worse ones.

“Yeah, I know, it looks like shit, don’t remind me,” you affirm reluctantly, and he shakes his head.

“No, fuck you, dude, it looks rad,” he insists, nudging you with his shoulder as if to prove his point. He moves his fingers to the club shape next to it and pops it out of the packaging. You expect him to toss it into his mouth, like he does with everything even though he misses every single fucking time, but he just snuggles up closer to you and nibbles on it absently. It’s certifiably adorable.

After not five minutes have passed, he reaches for your hand, and you happily grant him the privilege of holding it. He doesn’t remove any part of his side from any part of yours for the next half of the movie, staying quiet because you think he still doesn’t trust his tear ducts to remain inactive, only finishing three of the twenty-five chocolates in the box. The only reason he doesn’t stay like that the whole time is because the meteor lapses into its generally accepted night-time cycle (alchemising those chocolates took most of the fucking day), where everything gets darker and quieter and colder. Meaning _Dave_ gets colder and has to manoeuvre himself and the laptop around so that he can pull the blanket on his sleeping platform up to his neck.

When this results in his finding himself in your lap, clinging even more to your sweater, blinking sleepily as warmth overtakes you, you start to develop suspicions that he didn’t just want to alleviate the cold when he moved around like that.

But it’s not like you’re going to say anything about it.

You watch the movie end in the same position, your legs more dead than asleep but not caring, breathing in the scent of Dave’s hair, smiling and thinking the human Valentine’s Day is just as good as it looks in the movies.

As the credits roll, Dave speaks for the first time in an hour and a half, and his voice sounds perfectly normal again. “Do you still think you can’t be all the quadrants?”

It takes you a second.

“Oh, fuck off,” you hiss playfully. “Don’t be an ass.”

He laughs and nuzzles further into your sweater. What a contrary bastard. “Does this make us one of those weird old couples?” he asks, flickering his beautiful eyes up at you and smirking. “We met on a giant rock in paradox space while being chased by a magic evil dog…”

“Shut the fuck up.” But you’re laughing. You try to shrug him off, but he holds on like your lusus did to food, and you just end up getting hugged even tighter.

You manage to look down at him as he looks up at you.

“I hate you,” you say as you struggle not to smile.

He smiles, still sleepy and cute and utterly _not_ hot shit. “I hate you too, dude,” he says quietly, and presses the side of his face back into your clothes. Sighs. He’s warm, and adorable, and you both know what ‘I hate you’ means, so a bass-y noise speckled with insectile chirps rumbles involuntarily through the ribcage he’s got his ear pressed to and when he closes his eyes and breathes evenly you kind of envy him. You wish you could be falling asleep to the sound of _his_ heart and the sound of _him_ purring you a lullaby, but unfortunately, you’re too short and he’s too human.

But you’ll admit, it’s nice to have somewhere other than your empty recuperacoon to spend the night.

You don’t fall asleep to the sounds of him, but you fall asleep with thoughts that don’t sting.

Thoughts of less-rare grins and black glasses over red and an asinine celebration called Valentine’s Day.

 


End file.
